Blue planet

Military-industrial kid-poaching complex

McDonalds' sponsorship of an online maths tutoring program caused a big kerfuffle – the twin arches logo attached to the site causing Australian kiddies to develop an uncontrollable hankering for Big Macs, thus inevitably causing obesity and untimely death.

"An Adelaide public school has come under fire for reaching a deal with the world's largest manufacturer of guided missiles to fund a new curriculum."

Not simply Raytheon the defence contractor but rather the "world's largest manufacturer of guided missiles". And what does that mean anyway? The biggest company that manufactures missiles? Biggest missile seller by dollar amount? Biggest seller in terms of volume? Regardless, how is that "fact" relevant? Oh yeah, it's one of those big American companies.

And now for the meat of the story:

"The principal of Aberfoyle Park High School says the program will get students more interested in maths and science and encourage them to consider engineering as a career.

"But critics argue it is helping US-based contractor Raytheon poach students into the defence industry."

Sort of makes it seem camo-clad Raytheon operatives will be bagging kiddies in the dead of night, spiriting them away to clandestine educational institutions where they will be taught engineering rather than something truly useful like astronomy or economics. Hey, here's an idea, now that all Australian kids are Big Mac-addicted Raytheon can use snare traps baited with hamburgers. Can't fail.

Back to the story. The head of the education union is also unimpressed:

"I think the question the community would be asking is whether you want a company that has been involved in global conflicts and developing missiles, working in education with our children."

And the Australian government, the purchaser of the Raytheon missiles and other defence related products employed by our military, should be kept as far away from education as possible.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Anal magnetism is a pain in the bum

There's no way I'm going to let Gavin Atkins out-weird me with that Buffalaxing crap so I bring you the rare Swedish medical disorder oral galvanism, which can, if left untreated, evolve into anal magnetism. Buffalax that, Atkins.

Trick or treat, please

Halloween is becoming quite popular in Japan. I get this mental picture of little ghosts and goblins quietly knocking at neighbourhood doors then bowing as they not too loudly exclaim "trick or treat", politely thanking the treaters for what they gave. For some reason I find it hard to imagine Japanese kids leaving a flaming paper bag of dog turds on someone's doorstep.

Most reliable cars

Consumer Reports has again surveyed Americans on the reliability of their cars. It should come as no surprise that, after massive injections of government cash, Chrysler and General Motors products dominate the reliability list: the bottom half, that is. Eight of the top 10 most reliable cars are Asian, with seven of the 10 Japanese. No news here.

Put your money on Australia blinking first

In April, as the number of boat people – irregular immigrants the government now calls them; me, I prefer atypical entrants – began to surge Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd shrewdly diverted attention onto the people smugglers, calling them "vile scum" and the "lowest form of life". The Department of Immigration and Citizenship's People Smuggling fact sheet sort of, well, mysteriously disappeared for a rewrite. Regardless, people smugglers aren't a factor in the current stand-off on board the Oceanic Viking, the Sri Lankans crewing their own boat prior to rescue.

Having seen conflicting figures on the Oceanic Viking's complement, I decided to check the official figures. Oddly, many of the Oceanic Viking pages at the Customs and Border Protection Service's website are now "page or file not found". And strangely, since the missing pages are still in Google cache, they were only recently removed. Similarly, pages related to the Customs Marine Unit are also gone but still available in cache. A strange coincidence, that's what it is.

Anyway, no matter how the Oceanic Viking impasse turns out, not everyone's going to be smiling. The Sri Lankans don't want to go to Indonesia and Indonesians, apparently mostly, don't want them. Offered enough incentive the Indonesian authorities would probably be more welcoming but it's hard to see what could be offered to the Sri Lankans. If they're smart they'll stand their ground and see if the Rudd government decides to cut its losses and take them to Christmas Island. Doing so will make the government look pretty silly after its attempt to come across as all resolute and decisive in taking a hard line on atypical entrants. Using force to remove the Sri Lankans would be the logical move for a resolute and decisive government but just imagine the uproar should one of those rescued now be injured or killed while being forced to disembark. Can't see it happening.

The Prime Minister should announce that owing to seriously deteriorated conditions on the Oceanic Viking, perhaps emphasising the threat to the children's mental and physical health, all on board will be transferred to Christmas Island. The Opposition can't really be too critical of such a move and it doesn't really matter anyway since no one takes them seriously at the moment anyway.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

The blog problem

Shanghai-born Sydney heart surgeon Victor Chang was killed, shot twice in the head, during a botched extortion attempt. His killers, Malaysians Choon Tee Lim and Chiew Seng Liew, were sentenced to maximum terms of 24 and 26 years respectively. Earlier this week it became known that Choon Tee Lim was to be released and deported to Malaysia after serving the minimum 18 year sentence. On becoming aware of this New South Wales Minister for Corrective Services John Robertson immediately moved to block Lim's release. Only later, as the story circulated, did the public become outraged at the prospect of Lim's early release.

This sequence of events has now been rewritten, turned arse about, on a mainstream blog which claims as its mission exposing "dishonesty" elsewhere in the mainstream media. Why the rewrite? It's an attempt by a left-leaning independent media outlet (Crikey's Pure Poison) to discredit one of Rupert Murdoch's "right-wing" corporate outlets (Sydney's Daily Telegraph).

"The Daily Telegraph are feeding off the grief of a family and trying to undermine the justice system in New South Wales as they peddle their latest outrage of the week. The decision by the NSW Parole Authority to release one of the men who was convicted of the murder of high profile heart surgeon Dr Victor Chang has given the Tele the chance to spout righteous indignation and call for the judgement of their staff and readers to trump that of the professionals who work in the justice system.

As far as I can tell the "justice system" was first questioned by Corrective Services Minister John Robertson who moved to block Lim's release prior to the Daily Telegraph picking up and running with the story."

More counter-outrage outrage from Dave:

"As seems to be standard operating procedure whenever the Tele or one of the AM radio jocks starts up their outrage machine, NSW politicians are now falling over themselves to be associated with being on the right side of the Tele’s campaign rather than standing up for the people in our justice system who have the difficult and thankless task of dealing with offenders and making the onerous decisions about their punishment, rehabilitation and release."

Which politicians would those be, Dave? Perhaps Corrective Services Minister John Robertson, who, you know, was the first to express outrage, as he blocked Lim's release prior to the Telegraph even picking up the story.

Dave then veers off on a tangent:

"Equally worrying is the fact that The Daily Telegraph’s ability to objectively report on this case has been completely undermined by its decision to become a participant in this issue rather than a reporter. Not unlike Fox News’ decision in the US to help promote and organise the anti-Obama Tea Party rallies, then report on them as legitimate grass roots organisations, the Telegraph is using the front page of its website to promote their petition, which they are then using as proof of community feeling about this issue. This goes beyond the blurring of news and opinion and strays into the manufacturing of news, which undermines people’s trust in the media."

Yes, yes, we all love and worship Obama and understand what Fox News is doing to him is absolutely terrible, absolutely terrible - all Americans are idiots who can't think for themselves but that's, like, irrelevant.

Anyway, what is there to report? Lim's release has been temporarily blocked and will be reconsidered. So what if the Daily Telegraph is running a poll and a petition when the Corrective Services Minister and Chang's family and lots of ordinary citizens oppose Lim's early release - maybe Dave should tell Chang's family to shut up and stop undermining the parole board's decision making.

The bottom line? Be careful when you read blogs; some of them are way inaccurate.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Just say no

The asylum seekers on board the Australian customs vessel Oceanic Viking continue to refuse to leave the ship, adamant that they want to be taken to Australia. But Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says the asylum seekers' hopes are irrelevant:

"There's an agreement between Australia and the Government of Indonesia that the people who were rescued in the open seas will go to Indonesia and be processed by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Indonesia.

"They were picked up on the high seas. They were rescued on the high seas - it's not their choice."

Local Indonesian authorities apparently do not want the asylum seekers, who are only too happy to go along with this, refusing to disembark from the Oceanic Viking. The government today effectively acknowledging that, if necessary, the asylum seekers might be forced to disembark. This might be very difficult to pull off.

The Oceanic Viking, contracted from P&O, has a complement of some 75 of which approximately 25 are civilian crew. That leaves approximately 50 customs staff to supervise 78 asylum seekers, some 68 of which are males. Even though some of these customs officers are potentially armed and are well trained, it's hard to see them forcing the asylum seekers to do anything when they are outnumbered – what do they do if the asylum seekers refuse to comply?

The scenario is further complicated by the Indonesian authorities' refusal to assist in forcing the asylum seekers to go ashore - and why should they help, this isn't their problem. It therefore seems to be in the asylum seekers' best interest to sit tight and see what happens. It's going to be very interesting to see who loses face here. Me, I'm betting on some sort of compromise that allows both sides to claim victory.

As an aside, since the Oceanic Viking is licensed to carry 75, and there are probably double that number currently on board, is the Australian government in violation of its contract with P&O?

Islamization revealed

Antony Loewenstein, Australia's foremost Middle East expert, is currently in Washington sharing his deep insights at the J Street Conference. Fellow delegates will no doubt be amazed at a recent Loewenstein discovery while touring Saudi Arabia: "creeping Islamization". Amazing!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Just your typically hot Kiwi primary school teacher

Nude photos in Penthouse have landed New Zealand primary teacher mum Rachel Whitwell in a spot of bother: her suitability to teach is being investigated by the Teachers Council. It's a tough one this: should activities outside work affect one's career? In any event Whitwell is surprised at the fuss:

""I didn't think that anyone from New Zealand would see [the photos]."

Right, like New Zealand doesn't have the internet. Her boyfriend's career choice – pornographer – also works against her. Whitwell seems to be inclined towards poor decision making.

Alcohol, drugs and sex, but no rock and roll

The Federal government has announced a program that will see $9 million spent over three years on extra support for drug and alcohol dependent parents. The program's goal is to help affected children. That's not much money considering the number of children whose lives are adversely affected by a substance-abusing parent or parents.

Perhaps the government should consider allocating money to a program that actively discourages substance abusers having children – prevention is after all better than a band-aid solution for a problem that must see the government spend huge sums on social services, medical care and the like for children raised in dysfunctional families. It's also likely a disproportionate number of these kids will become involved with the legal system through crime. And don't even bother coming at me with the argument that some of the best parents you've known are drug/alcohol abusers. It's not true.

"Leading a healthy lifestyle to achieve fertility fitness should be considered as much a part of assisted reproduction as high technology interventions such as IVF (in vitro fertilisation).''

According to Professor Macklin, reproductive specialists must do more than assist with conception. They must, "ensure that the child becomes a healthy adult." This apparently means that parents who smoke or are obese need not apply. Fair enough, but where to draw the line? What about alcohol: how much is too much? And drugs; how much casual drug use disqualifies? What about risky lifestyles like sun-worshiping that might lead to an untimely parental death? Suppose a parent likes to gamble. The list of parental factors that might adversely affect a child is almost endless.

Nazi biscuits

Coon cheese. The Coon cheese almost did it; almost convinced me Australians are racists. Was the cheese actually named after an obscure cheese-maker or did its name allude to the black plastic in which it supposedly once came wrapped? As it turns out Edward Coon did develop a cheese-making process so the name is not inappropriate. Perhaps cheese-marketing gurus chose the name as a clever double-entendre referencing both Edward Coon and the black wrapper – using American racist slang for a black person, what better way to sell cheese to Australians.

With the Coon doubts still lingering it now emerges that Coles, one of Australia's largest supermarket chains, is selling the grotesquely named Creole creme biscuits (chocolate biscuits sandwiching a creme filling). Sam Watson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland sums it up nicely:

"The word Creole comes from a period when people's humanity was measured by the amount of white blood they had in their bloodstream. This is the same kind of thought that underpinned horrific regimes like the Nazis."

Send brains, not skulls, you idiot

Tigers by boat

Victor Rajakulendran of the Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations today told ABC News (Australia) that Tamil Tigers fleeing Sri Lanka could well be amongst boat people trying to reach Australia. This seems to support Liberal backbencher Wilson Tuckey's claim that terrorists could be amongst Sri Lankan asylum seekers headed to Australia. There is disagreement on the nature of the LTTE, however – are they terrorists or freedom fighters? In any event, the threat to Australia and Australians posed by Tamil Tigers, if any, is not apparent.

That said, the war in Sri Lanka has only just ended and it is highly likely the Sri Lanka government will in the future legally pursue any Tamils involved in the LTTE's more brutal and ruthless activities. A very close vetting of any Sri Lankan asylum seekers is therefore appropriate.

The apparent lack of threat is actually irrelevant to any decision to allow asylum seekers, or anyone else for that matter, into the country. Charles Zentai posed no threat to the community, evidenced by the fact that he lived in Australia for many years without apparent problem. He stands accused of war crimes – the World War II beating to death of a Jew – and is in the process of being extradited to Hungary for trial. Despite what The Boys From Brazil, Marathon Man and other fictional accounts would lead us to believe, most of the war criminals who fled Europe after the World War sought to be model citizens in their adoptive countries. So it will be with ex-Tigers coming to Australia.

There is the odd case of Paul Schaëfer, an ex-Nazi who set up his own personal German utopia in Chile, however. He is implicated in political disappearances orchestrated by the Chilean government but was ultimately convicted of child sex charges.

Anyway, it's not like I'm going to lose any sleep over Sri Lankan refugess but it would be comforting to know that they will be checked very carefully before being allowed entry – any future charges of war crimes could prove both embarrassing and costly for Australia.

Popularity of Indian-bashing continues to grow

The Age reports on the "unprovoked bashing" of an Indian man assaulted by a gang of young Australian thugs, the attack continuing despite the intervention of onlookers. Bashing? As in struck a savage blow to the head with a cricket bat? Or perhaps knocked to the ground and then kicked and stomped as his attackers taunted "curry-munching c**t". Is this poor fellow in intensive care in a coma? Nope, his turban was removed and he was struck to the head but his injuries did not require medical attention.

Such an attack, racially motivated or not, is obviously inexcusable. But so is sensationalist reporting of a minor incident.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Body built

Peter Garrett, Minister for Environment, Heritage and the Arts, and former Midnight Oil lead singer, has obviously been spending time in the gym. The results are spectacular to say the least – before and after. Let's see one of those Liberal heavyweights – Joe Hockey, for example – kick sand in his face.

A natural flu killer? Maybe

Influenza outbreaks run in seasonal cycles, the US right now experiencing a cold weather swine flu epidemic, President Obama declaring the outbreak a "national emergency". The reasons for this seasonality are not well understood. One elegantly simple explanation is that people are most susceptible to infection over winter or during the rainy season when their vitamin D levels are lowest – vitamin D is produced by the body on exposure to sunlight. It is thought that lowered vitamin D levels sufficiently weaken the immune system that the body is unable to fight off the flu.

It might therefore be a good idea to take a vitamin D supplement (D3 or cholecalciferol), especially during periods of low sun exposure. Vitamin D is relatively inexpensive but large doses can be toxic – not nearly as toxic as vitamin A, but toxic nonetheless (see here). The vitamin might have other benefits as well, Dr Soram Khalsa noting that a long term deficiency is "associated with 17 types of cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, autoimmune diseases including multiple sclerosis, as well as chronic pain and a wealth of other modern chronic diseases." (Go here for more info including suggested dosage.)

Note: I have no medical or science qualifications. Do not have a big cry in my direction if you take vitamin D and get the flu or if you poison yourself with huge doses.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Supercar

Sri Lanka learns from Israel tactics

Breaking news from a well-connected geopolitical analyst who has written for damn near every major newspaper on the planet, authored two books (one on the Israel-Palestine conflict), is a board member of Macquarie University’s Centre for Middle East and North African Studies, is an Honorary Associate at Macquarie University’s Department of Politics and International Relations, sits on the advisory council of the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, is a co-founder of advocacy group Independent Australian Jewish Voices, contributed to the 2008 Verso Books release A Time to Speak Out: On Israel, Zionism and Jewish Identity, was short-listed for the 2007 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award, has lectured at Harvard and, most importantly, regularly writes for Crikey (Harvard and Crikey, what more could you want?). Watch out India, you're next.

Editing note: This post doesn't quite fit the title because the title has changed. The original title is still visible in the address bar.

Invasion coming

Butterfly expert Paul Ehrlich famously predicted that "the battle to feed all of humanity is over... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." Ehrlich also wrote, "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980...". Hence India's plunging population.

Australian science communicator Julian Cribb predicts that unless there are some major wars or accidents – China slipping on the soap in the shower, for example – the world's population will reach 9.2 billion by 2050 and that there won't be enough food to go around. (This problem could be solved if the fat f**k Americans went on a diet but that isn't going to happen, now is it.)

Yeah, yeah, we've heard all this catastrophic food shortage stuff before and anyway I've got other things to worry about, like getting organised for tomorrow's barbecue (dry-aged Australian beef). Hang on says Cribb, how would you like it if a few uninvited guests crash the party?

"If you get a major collapse in food supply in an area like the north China plains or the Indo-Gangetic plains, there will be hundreds of millions of refugees cut lose so we could easily see 20 or 30 million refugees arrive in Australia over a couple of years."

Scare the crap out of us why don't you. It's time to buy some rabbits (great for eating and entertainment), stockpile baked beans and Spam, fatten up the dog and plant a veggie garden. Oh yeah, and buy a gun. I ain't sharin' with nobody.

Climate change hypocrisy day

Asian Correspondent's Edwin Espejo argues that whereas environmentally friendly energy is fantastic it's not a viable option for Mindanao. I think he's right and that wind, geo-thermal, solar and hydro-power can't come anywhere close to meeting the developing world's rising energy demand. The only realistic energy options are fossil fuels and nuclear power. But since nuclear power plants are very expensive and take years to plan and build it looks like fossil fuels will provide power for less well-off nations for the foreseeable future. Developing nations are not going to sacrifice economic development in order to cut emissions. That's just the way it is.

Today's worldwide climate change protests, kicking off in Australia, ignore that reality. Those marching will be well off, high per capita carbon emitting hypocrites. Few rural Indians will participate, neither knowing nor caring that Bianca Jagger – a "champion for social and environmental justice" – will attend the London rally. After doing their bit for the environment the protesters will drive home (the more stylish in fuel-guzzling SUVs), turn on the air-conditioner, grab a beer from the fridge and kick back in front of their big-screen TVs to watch the day's protest action. Bianca and the other high profile do-gooders will, of course, jet back to wherever they jetted in from. The developing world will be enveloped by a warm glow of smug self-satisfaction. Meanwhile, the less well off will be hoping for reliable and cheap electricity to make their lives easier. Oh yeah, and a car. Travel by jet comes later.

Friday, October 23, 2009

What, no Velvet Underground?

The harsh treatment accorded US-held terrorism suspects is back in the news with a number of high profile musicians aghast at the use of their music as an instrument of torture. The music of Metallica, REM, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam and Britney Spears was allegedly played to Guantanamo detainees at eardrum shattering volume for stretches of up to 72 hours in an effort to make them talk. This is indeed cruel and unusual punishment. No word on any resultant music-induced bean spilling.

By the way, Loewenstein, already a best-selling author (trust me), has a recent profile-enhancing post at HuffPo. It's about Aceh but still manages to make multiple mentions of... drum-roll... Israel.

A lot of people reckon I'm pretty hard on Loewenstein but the thing is, my frequent links must send at least a few readers his way. People can work out for themselves if his anti-western, anti-Israel message is worth hearing. I therefore suggest that everyone bookmark his site and visit it regularly. You could also do me a favour by buying one or both of his books – it'll help keep him off the taxpayer-funded dole.

Boundary encountered

A 25 year-old West Australian could spend life in a Texas prison if convicted of multiple child offences. As so often happens with men accused of such crimes this guy thinks he's special:

"US authorities discovered internet postings they believe Zirus wrote on a MySpace forum where he declared he was a member of the Shadoran movement and it was 'a fact that 8 out of 10 boys are bisexual but only 2 out of these 8 will ever admit it'''.

"I am a Shadoran and we have a special 'sexuality''called 'neltia' (r'neltia for male and l'neltia for female) - this 'sexuality' is unique because it has no boundries (sic),' Zirus allegedly wrote.

"You are open to love from ANY age, race or gender ... I will love whom ever I love."

Free food

Chips? Bloody lame, Atkins. If you plug a product hoping to score some free food you gotta think big. Me, I'm going for beef with a link to a live action webcam. Big barbecue at Beck's place coming up.

Terrorist asylum seekers not out of the question

As previously noted, Wilson Tuckey's comments about "terrorist" asylum seekers caused quite a stir. Australian columnist Andrew Bolt takes at look at Tuckey's comment, finding it not at all unreasonable. Read the whole thing.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Asians exempt

"The eco-pawprint of a pet dog is twice that of a 4.6-litre Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year, researchers have found.

"Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living."

Some Asians anticipated this and have been eating dogs forever. Well done!

Boat people worries

A nasty political row has erupted following Liberal Parliamentarian Wilson "Ironbar" Tuckey's claim that "terrorists" are amongst those arriving here from Asia by boat seeking asylum. Tuckey's comment comes not long after Prime Minister Rudd called those arriving by boat "illegal" immigrants. Both sides of politics are keen to show the Australian public they are taking a hard line on the so-called "boat people".

Here's how I see it. Those on the left think Australia is obliged to take whoever comes here seeking refuge – we should put out the "welcome mat" although, as you will see if you click the link, the left's position on "illegal" immigrants is by no means monolithic. The right would prefer to put up a "no vacancies" sign, suggesting politely that asylum seekers find somewhere else to park their boats – there are established procedures for those wanting to come here: get in line and wait your turn.

The vast majority of Australians are not unsympathetic to the plight of those wanting to come to Australia seeking a better life. They do not want to put out the welcome mat, however, worrying that doing so will result in a flood of Asians knocking at the door wanting to be let in. It is irrelevant whether or not this fear – worry is perhaps a better word – is valid.

Asia's population is approaching 4,000 million whereas Australia's population, at some 22 million, is approximately that of Shanghai. Australia is a minnow – both economically and in terms of numbers – swimming next to a whale. Asia will almost certainly eventually overwhelm us economically but for now we like our distinctive Aussie lifestyle just the way it is and don't want to be swamped by a rising tide of Asian immigrants, illegal or otherwise. Putting another shrimp on the wok is simply not Australian.

This fear of being overwhelmed, forcibly or otherwise, by Asians is not new. Hence the post-World War II push to draw European immigrants to Australia. Australia has since become a multi-cultural nation but living next door to a giant is still a worry. Politicians are therefore pandering to the majority of Australians who are worried, rightly or wrongly, that a soft line on asylum seekers will inevitably result in a flood of queue-jumping mostly Asian immigrants. Such is politics.

World's best ball game

Soccer is great fun to play but as a spectator sport it's about as exciting as the magazines in a dentist's waiting room. Playing the game well requires great skill but there's just not enough action. Australian Rules Football, however...

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Parachuting pussies

Naked skydiving isn't everyone's cup of tea but the unusual sport does have its well-equipped (nudge, nudge) devotees – slathering up with baby oil is the best way to prevent wind burn, by the way. The photos, which add an extra dimension to the mile high club, are well worth a look. Wait a minute, that story isn't meant for this site. Ignore that.

Anyway, you've probably heard the story about the cats parachuted into Borneo back in the 1950s. Some versions claim thousands of CIA-trained (with enough catnip and LSD you can get a cat to do anything) commando cats fitted with individual kitty-chutes executed HALO drops into the jungle where they sought out and destroyed die-hard remnants of the Imperial Japanese Army, or something like that. Untrue.

"As part of anti-malarial campaign in the northern states of the island of Borneo in the late 1950s, the World Health Organization sprayed DDT and other insecticides to kill the mosquito vector for malaria. During this campaign, DDT was sprayed in large amounts on the inside walls and ceilings of the large “long houses” that housed an entire village in these areas. As a consequence of this effort, the incidence of malaria in the region fell dramatically. However, there were two unintended consequences of this action. There was an increase in the rate of decay of the thatched roofs covering the long houses because a moth caterpillar that ingests the thatch avoided the DDT but their parasite, the larvae of a small wasp, did not. Also, the domestic cats roaming through the houses were poisoned by the DDT as a consequence of rubbing against the walls and then licking the insecticide off their fur. In some villages, the loss of cats allowed rats to enter, which raised concerns of rodent-related diseases such as typhus and the plague. To rectify this problem in one remote village, several dozen cats were collected in coastal towns and parachuted by the Royal Air Force in a special container to replace those killed by the insecticides."

Now there's a story you can amaze your friends with the next time you're all slobbery drunk.

One trick pony

Australian anti-Zion "Jew" Antony Loewenstein, currently visiting Indonesia, has 20 posts on his homepage, most of them, appropriately enough, about Aceh, his current port of call. Yet he somehow manages to mention "Israel" 68 times. He should perhaps consider divesifying his repertoire.

Please move your car, thanks ever so much

And you think your lover is demanding...

There's no getting around it, females are into foreplay; males not so much so. The considerate male must be willing to bend over backwards (it works for me) or suffer the consequences of a dissatisfied lover. Well, just be glad you're not a male Australian redback spider:

"It's long been known that the female redback who is roughly twice the size of her male counterpart, regularly eats a number of her male courtiers, although exactly what determines who gets eaten has been unclear.

"New Canadian research suggests that it depends on whether the female has been satisfied by the duration of the stimulatory courtship, which entails the male vibrating the female's web for approximately 100 minutes."

Navy sex scandal story still simmering

Sailors seeking sex. Outlandish! Unheard of! Disgusting! Animals! Or so went the lurid tale of sailors on board HMAS Success running a sex-conquest competition with a cash prize for the seaman who bedded the greatest number of female crew mates. The story was big in the news, went international and was, of course, much discussed in the blogosphere. There were precious few facts to go on, the shortage encouraging wild speculation.

Liberals -- progressives being something less than pro-military -- were aghast, however. This was no mere boys-will-be-boys story. One Australian blogger identified a deep rooted problem within the Royal Australian Navy's "institutional culture", this akin to sportsmen having sex with groupies:

"The problem here is that it appears some male seamen regarded their female counterparts as potential conquests, and that raises questions about attitudes toward and treatment of women in the Navy. Arguably, this is similar to the issue arising from certain high-profile sportsmen being involved in group sex or other activities that, regardless of whether they were consensual and irrespective of the fact that nothing criminal took place, involved treating women as objects in a sexual game."

Another left-wing blogger thought it irrelevant that no actual sex was known to have taken place. "The problem was the lack of professionalism and respect" inherent in the competition itself. As if it is unprofessional and disrespectful for a man, on spying an attractive female workmate, to say to a friend, "I bet I can have sex with her". Money changing hands in such a situation would never happen. Really.

"The navy knew within days that claims crewmen ran a competition on how many female sailors they could sleep with were false, but did nothing to set the record straight," the Federal Opposition claims.

"The three men said to have run the competition were removed from supply ship HMAS Success in Singapore in May because of the allegations, and have not been posted back to sea since.

"Opposition defence spokesman David Johnson said last night the navy's treatment of the men was ''shoddy'' and their careers may have been irreparably damaged."

How did this non-story turn into a media frenzy in the first place? Since readers = dollars, playing the story up made perfect sense. Sex scandals sell so let's go for it. Even in pre-internet times the story would have generated lots of interest. But the internet did add a new dimension to the saga: people could discuss the story online. The mainstream media, bloggers and online commenters must have invested literally millions of hours in writing about the scandal that wasn't. That's fine for those who got paid for their efforts but what about the unpaid commenters? Do they feel duped? Did they have nothing better to do with their time than to discuss what turns out to be a non-event?

We all know that lots of people are spending lots of time online. Estimates are staggering:

"It has been announced that the billionth game of Halo 3 has been played on Xbox Live, that means roughly one game has been played for every six people on the planet. In terms of time spent, if each game lasted 30 minutes, it’s over 64,000 years of playing time."

That figure may not be totally accurate but it works out to be a huge chunk of time no matter what. Gamers investing their leisure time in online activities is one thing, blog commenters, many online via a work computer, investing their employers' time in totally unproductive effort must be costing all of us dearly. Not only that, try to imagine the electricity wasted and greenhouse gas emissions generated by online activity associated with just the Navy-sex-scandal-that-wasn't.

Come on lefties, do the right thing; help save the planet by staying offline. Al Gore will love you for it.

Update: Claims that the sailors were "railroaded" have been picked up by various Australian news outlets. Good. It remains to be seen if the liberal bloggers mentioned above will recant – if past form is any guide it's unlikely.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Australians racist? Not even

I don't see the assaults and robberies of Indians in Australia as necessarily racist acts although some might well be. Here's an example from personal experience (Oh No! this crazy Beck guy is going to tell us another boring personal story); you decide if it's relevant.

Back in the 1970s I several times visited a friend living and studying in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, just north of Mexico City. Americans were very popular with the business community but not so much so amongst the less well-off locals. Many of the young bucks, who hung out in groups, were outright antagonistic to Yanks. Walking around town could be a real adventure. The young hoons would gawk at us, talking animatedly amongst themselves as we approached, often laughing loudly and passing rude comments, making it obvious they thought us ridiculous. Hoons on the move had the right of way: if you didn't give them a wide berth they'd hip and shoulder you.Young females (many inclined to tempt fate by dressing provocatively) were special targets, often suffering a combination bump-grope (I told you not to wear that halter top) accompanied by the inevitable "whore" jibe. It was even more scary at night – best to not venture out of the well-lit areas in the town centre. Robberies and minor assaults weren't an everyday event but did happen.

Many foreigners lived in compounds surrounded by formidable glass shard-topped walls. Break ins were nonetheless common. In one particularly nasty incident two thugs made it over a wall, past a German Shepard and into a residence where they sexually assaulted a female and beat up her companion, making off with everything they could carry.

Were these incidents racially motivated? Not in my opinion. The young local males identified foreigners by appearnce but couldn't have cared less about where they were from. Nope, they resented us because we were outsiders on their territory who were better off than they were. Even more provocative, we had bright futures whereas these guys had no realistic hope of significantly improving their lot in life, ever. Stealing our stuff and giving us a good thumping would have been very satisfying.

It's probably pretty much the same here in Australia. Ockers target young upwardly mobile Indians more due to envy than racism.

Randeep is definitely right about Aussies insulting foreigners, however; it's part of Australian culture. Everyone insults everyone else's nationality or race, or both. Hell, I even make sarcastic remarks to my doctor about being from Ghana – he's a top bloke and I obviously wouldn't let him treat me if I thought him less than competent. I really couldn't care less where he's from or that he's about as black as it's possible to be. In fact he's so black.. Oops, better save that for later.

And boy, do I ever cop plenty of abuse: Americans are all stupid (elected that ass-hole Bush not once but twice, didn't you), fast-food-eating, loud-mouthed, gun obsessed weirdos who want to take over the world. Hmm, come to think of it... Anyway, "septic tank" is Aussie rhyming slang for Yank, invariably shortened to simply "septic". That's when I'm not being referred to as a "fuckin' American", not offence intended. And oddly, any Aussie that calls you "bastard" will likely be a friend for life.

In short, down under everybody insults everybody. So it's not at all suprising that Randeep was called a "curry muncher"; in Australia that's almost a term of affection.

Update: For a nationality and race insults blast from the past go here – don't come crying to me if you're offended.

Security breached

Officals at a Perth company servicing the Australian Defence Force, banks and anyone else requiring armed security are no doubt mighty embarrassed after thieves broke into their premises making off with 17 guns, including Glocks. Gun violence is relatively rare in Western Australia; let's hope these extra guns in the hands of ne'er do wells don't get anyone hurt.

Extreme prejudice

According to the Los Angeles Times there have been at least five fatal crashes involving "runaway Toyota and Lexus vehicles made by Toyota Motor Corp" resulting from "hundreds of incidents of sudden acceleration involving the company's vehicles". Toyota blames accelerator pedals jammed open by adrift floor mats. Some experts think the problem has more to do with possible faults in the cars' sophisticated technical systems. Read more here.

Jeremy Clarkson, sensing that the Toyota he's road testing has picked up on his negativity and might try to kill him HAL 9000 style, takes preemptive action. That's one Prius that's never going to hurt anyone.

Free speech or hate speech?

"An article by the leader of the far-right Sweden Democrats claiming that Islam is the biggest threat to Sweden since World War II is tantamount to hate speech, according to legal experts.

"A number of jurists believe the text, published in the opinion section of the Aftonbladet newspaper, qualifies as agitation against an ethnic group (hets mot folkgrupp).

"The Sweden Democrats concluded their annual congress on Sunday in the town of Ljungbyhed in Skåne in southern Sweden.

"According to Åkesson, “today’s multicultural Swedish power-elite are totally blind to the dangers of Islam.”

"He goes on to claim that more than ten Muslim terrorist organizations have established themselves in Sweden, that Sweden has the most rapes in Europe, and that Muslim men are highly overrepresented among the perpetrators.

"'As a Sweden Democrat, I see this as our greatest external threat since World War II and I promise to use all my power to change the trend during next year's election,' writes Åkesson.

"Åkesson’s claims prompted academics and legal experts to draw parallels between the Sweden Democrats and the Nazis."

Yep, any day now Sweden is going to round up its Muslims and put them in concentration camps, annex Norway and invade Finland.

Seduced by lies

All that stuff the other day about me paying to blog here at AC is untrue. I'd tell you how much I'm getting paid except that my contract has a confidentiality clause. Let's just say that I'll be making almost enough to pay my bills, at the local beer outlets anyway.

My first meeting with the Asian Correspondent crew was, well, intimidating. It took like forever to get to their suite of offices – they're somewhere in New Jersey, I think. Two well-dressed, immaculately-groomed Harvard MBAs greeted me, quickly ushering me out into the well-appointed courtyard where the negotiations took place (one of them seemed distracted and said nothing throughout the meeting).

Naturally enough, the first words from me were, "how much?". After settling on a figure we discussed AC's expectations. I was told to keep on writing the same sort of stuff I had been writing – the guy tried to flatter me by calling RWDB a "slow motion train wreck" (lots of interest over a long period, apparently). Then almost as an aside he asked what RWDB stands for. He thought Right-Wing Death Beast would put readers off and after a quick think suggested LAC for, he said, Lovable And Cuddly. Now whereas I'm about as lovable and cuddly as it's humanly possible to be, such an appalachian (note to AC technical staff: the spell checker just went nuts) really isn't appropriate for a really bright neon-conservative, like myself, who 100% supports wife beating, nuclear war, child smacking, wash boarding and the like. So I stood my ground on the RWDB thing.

So how upset do you think I am to now discover that LAC doesn't really stand for Lovable And Cuddly at all? It actually stands for... I can't; it's simply too painful... read it for yourself. I'm going to get drunk, go to bed, sob myself to sleep and hope tomorrow is a better day. This blogging stuff is dog eat dog.

Competition – big prizes on offer

All you have to do to be in the running to win a prize* is go to the correspondents viewer thingy at the upper right of the homepage, look at all of the photos/graphics and then lodge a comment nominating the single best and single worst – this is not a beauty contest; judge on quality and/or presentation. When you lodge your comment put the best first followed by the worst. If this doesn't draw at least a few comments I'm going to have a big sad so LODGE A COMMENT, or else. (I was going to construct a proper poll for this but some of those name are just too weird to type out – I'm looking at you here Scudamore-Smith.)

*I lied about the prizes. Sue me for tricking you into doing unpaid focus-group work.

Dog bite fatal

So this guy is out walking around beautiful Melbourne when an American pit bull trots up and mangles his "two small fluffy dogs" and then latches onto the poor guy's hand and won't let go, savouring the flavour of hand for over twenty minutes. What to do? Get out the big needle:

"A pit bull that had latched onto a man's hand for more than 20 minutes and would not let go had to be lethally injected last night.

"A Victoria Ambulance spokesman said the killing had been an "absolute last resort" at the request of police who could not shoot the dog because it was too close to the man."

I suppose Tasering the dog would have zapped the guy as well, which is just what you need when you have a dog attached to your hand.

The Left's war on science

One million malaria deaths a year is one million too many. As there is as yet no malaria vaccine, controlling mosquitoes is the best way to control the disease. An environmentally sensitive program of integrated pest management (IPM) is the ideal way to control mosquitoes. Such programs tend to be expensive, requiring as they do, close management and supervision. IPM is therefore beyond the means of poorer countries.

This leaves bed-nets and insecticides as the best means of malaria prevention for people who cannot afford mosquito-excluding insect screens on their home windows. Bed-nets have evolved into highly effective screens that not only exclude mosquitoes but also kill them, the latest versions remaining effective for three years or more. The main problem with bed-nets, as with all prophylactics, is that they must be used, and used correctly, in order to effectively do their job. Forget to deploy or properly close your net just once and you could be bitten and infected. Heat is also a problem: bed-nets greatly reduce air flow to sleepers making the hot nights in tropical climes even hotter. This discourages use in some of the areas with the biggest malaria problems. So whereas bed-nets are highly effective, they are not the perfect solution to the malaria problem.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends 12 residual insecticides for indoor mosquito control. Of this dozen, DDT is unique in that it both kills and repels mosquitoes. DDT is not the perfect insecticide, however. The persistence that is one of DDT's greatest assets also makes it controversial – DDT degrades only slowly and some of its decay products, DDE for example, are believed to be biologically active. Thus the agricultural use of DDT, which saw millions of kilograms of the chemical broadcast into the environment, was inappropriate. When so used, insects develop resistance, sometimes very quickly, to an insecticide, and so it was with DDT. DDT remains effective against mosquitoes throughout much of Africa, however, the area where it is most needed. Modern indoor residual spraying (IRS) programs using DDT use only minute quantities of the insecticide and do not release significant quantities of DDT into the environment.

Many environmentalists oppose any use of DDT, however. Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring, the holy scripture of the environmental movement, is the ultimate source of this opposition. Saint Rachel rightly pointed out DDT's drawbacks (for agricultural use) but greatly overstated its toxicity. Environmentalists (overwhelmingly Leftists) refuse to accept that Carson erred in some of her pronouncements from on high, and savagely attack anyone even remotely critical of her writing.

Shortly prior to coming on board here at Asian Correspondent I wrote a short essay critical of Silent Spring for Australian journal Quadrant Online. The response from the political Left was swift and vicious but ungrounded in reality. Quadrant has now published my response to the ravings of those who refuse to acknowledge that Rachel Carson told some whopping great lies in making her case against DDT.

Australia, land of deadly creatures

Visitors to Australia need to be mindful but not frightened of the many creatures down here that will eat, bite, sting, stab or slash you. Our spiders, jellyfishes and snakes are the world's most poisonous and our crocodiles and sharks among the biggest. Hell, we even have a stinging tree that can kill an animal as big as a horse; the sting of which is so intensely painful a soldier is reputed to have shot himself to end the misery. But realistically, foreign tourists have little to worry about; it's not like there are stories in the paper every day about someone being eaten by a shark or killed by snake bite. So if you're thinking about visiting Australia don't let our nasty critters put you off. Hey, you can say you visited Australia and survived the experience, regaling friends with your tale of the 6 meter crocodile that chased you through the surf at Three Bears.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Chinese not wanted

"Australia's Defense Department is trying to block Chinese participation in a mining operation within the Woomera missile range. It was feared that the Chinese presence would lead to spying on the many military activities that take place within the Woomera facility."

~

"This is the second time this year that the Australian government has blocked an attempt by a Chinese government operate in or near Woomera (where some mining is allowed.) Officially, the reason given was that it was too dangerous to operate in the areas the Chinese wanted to work."

Hang on a minute, we pose no threat to China; why would they want to spy on our weapons testing facilities? Then again, we are allied with the United States.

COMMENTS

Underwear for the well-hung man

In what could be the most clever marketing ploy ever a Swedish company is offering underwear for "well-hung men in need of elegant Christmas presents". No man shopping for underwear is going to grab oridnary jocks off the shelf thereby announcing he's less than magnificently equipped down below. Women will, of course, play to their man's ego by buying the yes-honey-you're-huge undies. Brilliant!

Everything is not as it seems here, however. The jocks are sort of a man-package Wonderbra that lifts and makes the dangly-bits more prominent – wearers will stand out from the crowd, so to speak. Watch the action-packed video.

Unfortunately, there's nothing the undies can do for Australian men born without testicles - what will these ambassadors for Australia do for an encore after mocking non-white speech patterns?

Update: The link immediately above – to a mob of self-styled vigilante try-hards – has been disabled.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Food for thought

For dinner this evening I had fish fillets purchased from Woolworths. They were damn good, thank you. And like so many of the products I buy these days the fish was from Asia - Vietnam is to be commended for its tasty teriyaki fillets. Thinking about this got me to wondering if any of our Asian readers has ever bought anything produced in Australia. If so, I'm guessing it was either lamb or beef.

Update: The lime chilli fish is also really nice. But I've got to admit that I was a bit leery of buying seafood produced in Vietnam after some prawns that were truly awful.

Friends or just neighbours?

You're probably wondering why an expatriate American living in the wilds of Western Australia is blogging at Asian Correspondent. Good question, I was wondering about that too. Anyway, here I am so I had better get with the program by writing something you want to read.

Is Australia part of Asia? While we're geographically right next door Australia is usually considered to be a continent to itself or is perhaps included with the islands of the Pacific as part of Oceania. With the majority of Australians having European ancestry we're also not Asian in terms of "race" or language. So really, no matter how look you at it Australia is not, strictly speaking, Asian.

The thing is, even if we're technically not part of Asia we do live in the neighbourhood and the notion of continents as geographic entities inhabited by different "races" is arbitrary and outdated anyway. With China and Japan our two biggest trading partners we are closely tied to Asia; short of some unforeseen upheaval in international trade these links are only going to grow stronger. I therefore expect that Australia's economy will over time be integrated into the much larger Asian economy, eventually making Australia, for all practical purposes, Asian.

Frankly, some less broadminded Australians will find the notion of Asianification, well, repugnant. But surely some Asians are put off by the thought of Aussies being part of Asia. As we move closer together will the Asians who vastly outnumber us embrace or merely tolerate us?

DEEP THROAT SOUNDS

CRIKEY, THE RULES ARE DIFFERENT

PP boy Tobias Ziegler on the nastiness of Andrew Bolt, which flows on to his commenters:

[Bolt's] approach to commentary shows contempt for reasonable debate – and comments deriding the character, personality and even the appearance of people and groups who disagree with conservative positions are published but not denounced as being below the preferred level of debate. Contrary to claims of valuing open debate and disagreement, the publication of respectful disagreement at his site can be patchy – as we and our commenters have documented on this site and its predecessors. The topics and line of debate in his posts commonly focus on defining outgroups – “What is it with the Left and …”, Aboriginal enough or not Aboriginal enough?, Muslims and the problems they bring into this country, etc.

Clearly, The Hand that Signed the Paper’s author has no sense of humour. Which makes her views on what constitutes a humorous blog all the more laughable. Dale is disappointed that Crikey has employed a bunch of bloggers from GrodsCorp — a site she calls “very, very unfunny” and whose contributors she describes as “bullying nitwits” and “among the nastier bunches floating around the Oz interwebs”.

Yet who do we find in Dale’s blogroll? None other than bullying nitwit Tim Blair who, in collusion with some of the “Oz interwebs’” most deranged bottom-feeders (including Andrew Bolt), has spent years trying to intimidate Jeremy Sear, prying into his private life, trying to damage his career, poking fun at his divorce and so on.

Jeremy is by no means the only person Blair, his winged monkeys and the blogosphere’s biggest creeps have targeted; and, needless to say, GrodsCorp has never involved itself in anything this disgraceful — but that’s beside the point.

The point, of course, is that gnashing one’s teeth about “nastiness” and “bullying” on the same page as a Tim Blair link is breathtaking in its hypocrisy.

As far as bottom-feeders go, little-known blogger J.F. Beck was the most unctuous to weigh in to yesterday’s Pure Poison attack. Beck’s blog has for years been little more than an exercise in ingratiating himself to Tim Blair with creepy personal pot-shots Jeremy Sear and ham-fisted attacks on Antony Loewenstein. Not surprisingly for someone of Blair’s ego, it seems to have worked — the two exchange links (and cuddly emails) with almost the same loving frequency as Blair and Bolt.

I won’t bother posting a link to Beck’s site because it (like the man himself, who all those years ago stalked Jeremy until he’d uncovered his identity) truly is a steaming pile of shit. But if you really must have a look at it, you can find a link in Legal Eagle’s blogroll at (gasp!) anti-bullying-humour-authority Helen Dale’s site.

Last, and most certainly least, a pathetic bankrupt you probably don’t care about had a crack too. But the less said about him, the better.

While I agree with Bolt that publication of a comment at a blog does not necessarily indicate endorsement by the blogger, I’m a little surprised that a senior journalist and blogging veteran (a few years in the blogosphere makes you a veteran) is shocked by the realisation that bloggers tend to be associated with the comment threads they spawn. Surely he can’t be that naïve. Bolt’s critics have long pointed out the kind of rubbish that is regularly published in his comment threads and Bolt has long failed to do anything about it, so the sudden hand-wringing and soul-searching comes across as a bit disingenuous, as does the attempt to blame only “students”, “leftists trying to cause michief” and “nutters”.

This is hilarious coming from a blogging veteran who took his blog offline so he could sanitize it by removing the more embarrassing posts and deleting all of the comments. The whole PP crew lives in a parallel reality.

Update: The Rogenous post above is pretty old; they don't do that "play the man" stuff anymore, right? Wrong:

Like his loony namesake in the US, it seems that Beck is willing to lie, distort facts, quote out of context, and throw science out the window in order to score some cheap points against environmentalists. He’s a persistent nit-picker of this blog (his own blog’s raison d’etre seems to be to monitor the typos of Pure Poison, Loewenstein and a couple of others) but his own attempt at producing a substantive argument fell into 17 shades of fail.

How am I going to be a better blogger if I'm not shown where I'm wrong? El Barbudo tries to be helpful:

Thanks for that link, El Barbudo – and I see Blair offers the level of detailed and critical analysis of the content he links to that we’ve come to expect.

It doesn’t seem to have picked up much interest from his commenters, though – “WB” has accounted for one-fifth of the comments so far, and nearly half of the comments that are there seem to have nothing to do with the topic.

Tobias, this is precisely why people of J.F. Beck and Tim Blair’s ilk prefer sniping and infantile smart-arsery to advancing their own arguments: whenever they attempt the latter, they get their fragile chins handed to them.

And so Tobias Ziegler manages his site in a way that encourages arguments based on stereotypes, divisiveness and personal attacks to thrive. Naughty, naughty PP boy. Anybody got a wooden spoon I can borrow?

CRIKEY, THE RULES ARE DIFFERENT

PP boy Tobias Ziegler on the nastiness of Andrew Bolt, which flows on to his commenters:

[Bolt's] approach to commentary shows contempt for reasonable debate – and comments deriding the character, personality and even the appearance of people and groups who disagree with conservative positions are published but not denounced as being below the preferred level of debate. Contrary to claims of valuing open debate and disagreement, the publication of respectful disagreement at his site can be patchy – as we and our commenters have documented on this site and its predecessors. The topics and line of debate in his posts commonly focus on defining outgroups – “What is it with the Left and …”, Aboriginal enough or not Aboriginal enough?, Muslims and the problems they bring into this country, etc.

Clearly, The Hand that Signed the Paper’s author has no sense of humour. Which makes her views on what constitutes a humorous blog all the more laughable. Dale is disappointed that Crikey has employed a bunch of bloggers from GrodsCorp — a site she calls “very, very unfunny” and whose contributors she describes as “bullying nitwits” and “among the nastier bunches floating around the Oz interwebs”.

Yet who do we find in Dale’s blogroll? None other than bullying nitwit Tim Blair who, in collusion with some of the “Oz interwebs’” most deranged bottom-feeders (including Andrew Bolt), has spent years trying to intimidate Jeremy Sear, prying into his private life, trying to damage his career, poking fun at his divorce and so on.

Jeremy is by no means the only person Blair, his winged monkeys and the blogosphere’s biggest creeps have targeted; and, needless to say, GrodsCorp has never involved itself in anything this disgraceful — but that’s beside the point.

The point, of course, is that gnashing one’s teeth about “nastiness” and “bullying” on the same page as a Tim Blair link is breathtaking in its hypocrisy.

As far as bottom-feeders go, little-known blogger J.F. Beck was the most unctuous to weigh in to yesterday’s Pure Poison attack. Beck’s blog has for years been little more than an exercise in ingratiating himself to Tim Blair with creepy personal pot-shots Jeremy Sear and ham-fisted attacks on Antony Loewenstein. Not surprisingly for someone of Blair’s ego, it seems to have worked — the two exchange links (and cuddly emails) with almost the same loving frequency as Blair and Bolt.

I won’t bother posting a link to Beck’s site because it (like the man himself, who all those years ago stalked Jeremy until he’d uncovered his identity) truly is a steaming pile of shit. But if you really must have a look at it, you can find a link in Legal Eagle’s blogroll at (gasp!) anti-bullying-humour-authority Helen Dale’s site.

Last, and most certainly least, a pathetic bankrupt you probably don’t care about had a crack too. But the less said about him, the better.

While I agree with Bolt that publication of a comment at a blog does not necessarily indicate endorsement by the blogger, I’m a little surprised that a senior journalist and blogging veteran (a few years in the blogosphere makes you a veteran) is shocked by the realisation that bloggers tend to be associated with the comment threads they spawn. Surely he can’t be that naïve. Bolt’s critics have long pointed out the kind of rubbish that is regularly published in his comment threads and Bolt has long failed to do anything about it, so the sudden hand-wringing and soul-searching comes across as a bit disingenuous, as does the attempt to blame only “students”, “leftists trying to cause michief” and “nutters”.

This is hilarious coming from a blogging veteran who took his blog offline so he could sanitize it by removing the more embarrassing posts and deleting all of the comments. The whole PP crew lives in a parallel reality.

Update: The Rogenous post above is pretty old; they don't do that "play the man" stuff anymore, right? Wrong:

Like his loony namesake in the US, it seems that Beck is willing to lie, distort facts, quote out of context, and throw science out the window in order to score some cheap points against environmentalists. He’s a persistent nit-picker of this blog (his own blog’s raison d’etre seems to be to monitor the typos of Pure Poison, Loewenstein and a couple of others) but his own attempt at producing a substantive argument fell into 17 shades of fail.

How am I going to be a better blogger if I'm not shown where I'm wrong? El Barbudo tries to be helpful:

Thanks for that link, El Barbudo – and I see Blair offers the level of detailed and critical analysis of the content he links to that we’ve come to expect.

It doesn’t seem to have picked up much interest from his commenters, though – “WB” has accounted for one-fifth of the comments so far, and nearly half of the comments that are there seem to have nothing to do with the topic.

Tobias, this is precisely why people of J.F. Beck and Tim Blair’s ilk prefer sniping and infantile smart-arsery to advancing their own arguments: whenever they attempt the latter, they get their fragile chins handed to them.

And so Tobias Ziegler manages his site in a way that encourages arguments based on stereotypes, divisiveness and personal attacks to thrive. Naughty, naughty PP boy. Anybody got a wooden spoon I can borrow?

Thursday, October 15, 2009

BUNNY HEADS EXPLODED

Every year, the city of Stockholm kills off thousands of rabbits in an effort to protect trees and shrubbery in the city’s extensive network of parks and green space.

Animal control authorities employ a special rifle to shoot the excess rabbits, with most of the culling taking place at dawn when the animals peek out from their holes.

And disposed of:

Last year marked a new record for Stockholm’s rabbit cull, with nearly 6,000 rabbits, mostly from Kungsholmen, being removed from Stockholm’s parks.

But rather than simply disposing of the dead rabbits, the city instead froze them for eventual transport to a special heating plant in Karlskoga in central Sweden, where the bunny bodies are then burned as a form of bioenergy.

BUNNY HEADS EXPLODED

Every year, the city of Stockholm kills off thousands of rabbits in an effort to protect trees and shrubbery in the city’s extensive network of parks and green space.

Animal control authorities employ a special rifle to shoot the excess rabbits, with most of the culling taking place at dawn when the animals peek out from their holes.

And disposed of:

Last year marked a new record for Stockholm’s rabbit cull, with nearly 6,000 rabbits, mostly from Kungsholmen, being removed from Stockholm’s parks.

But rather than simply disposing of the dead rabbits, the city instead froze them for eventual transport to a special heating plant in Karlskoga in central Sweden, where the bunny bodies are then burned as a form of bioenergy.